The head of the race relations watchdog has warned that the Government's 'lack of control' over immigration risks inflaming tension.

Trevor Phillips said young mothers were worried about classrooms in which teachers struggled to cope with children with 'too many languages' between them, while commuters faced public transport so packed that travelling to work is a daily 'hell'.

The chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission also warned of increasing segregation caused by poor communication across racial or religious lines. 'We have seen the emergence of a kind of cold war in some parts of the country, where very separate communities exist side by side.'

His remarks came in an address to mark the 40th anniversary of Enoch Powell's infamous 'rivers of blood' speech, which predicted grave social unrest unless mass migration was halted.

Mr Powell, then Tory defence spokesman, said Britain had to be 'mad, literally mad' to allow in 50,000 dependants of immigrants each year. He compared it to watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre. The MP for Wolverhampton South West called for an immediate reduction in immigration.

He said anti-discrimination laws were like 'throwing a match on to gunpowder'. And he said he was filled with a sense of foreboding, comparing racial tensions to the Roman poet Virgil's description of 'the River Tiber foaming with much blood'.

He was sacked by Tory leader Edward Heath.

Mr Phillips told an audience at the same Birmingham hotel where Mr Powell spoke that the reaction had been to close down mainstream political debate on migration for fear of being labelled a racist.

'In essence, Powell so discredited any talk of planning or control that it gave rise to a migration policy in which government knew too little about what was going on.

'Ironically, Powellism and the weakening of control it engendered may have led Britain to admitting more immigrants than fewer.'

Mr Phillips, who made a similarly stark warning that Britain was sleepwalking towards segregation in 2005, said the Government must confront legitimate public concerns about migration - such as its impact on schooling and other public services.

While the 'hot conflict and violence' predicted by Mr Powell had not materialised, failure by the Government now to act could play into the hands of the British National Party.

'For every professional woman who is able to go out to work because she has a Polish nanny, there is a young mother who watches her child struggle in a classroom where a harassed teacher faces too many children with too many languages between them.

' Wanting a better deal for her child doesn't make her anti-immigrant. But if we can't find a better answer to her despair then she soon will be.

'For every boss whose bacon is saved by the importation of skilled IT professionals or craftspeople or health professionals, there are a thousand people who wonder every morning why they have to put up with the misery of a packed railway carriage or bus - if they can get on in the first place.

'Wanting an infrastructure that doesn't make getting to work daily hell doesn't make someone a natural voter for an anti-immigrant party. But it soon will.'

Mr Phillips said 'fair treatment' should not be reserved for ethnic minorities. 'We need to do more for young white men who are having to compete with clever Polish graduates,' he warned. Ministers should also actively manage the geographical balance of migration, he said, with more migrants encouraged to settle in Scotland.

He added that Britain is probably the most tolerant country in Europe, but the legacy of Mr Powell's speech and a 'lack of control' over immigration policy by governments of both parties meant that it has gained an unfair reputation as one of the most xenophobic.

'I believe that the more we talk about immigration the better. Many think that this is not the time or the place for this debate. If we cannot talk about it now, then when?'

Addressing the same meeting, Trade Minister Digby Jones said Britain should turn immigration to its advantage.

The former CBI leader said: ' We are built on immigration. We are a bastard race. What I always say is, "This is our country, not mine, and if you are here it's your country, feel that you own it". We should see the 40th anniversary of that speech to kick start putting the Great back into Great Britain.'

Police chiefs want restrictions on recruiting foreign officers relaxed so that they can hire Poles and other Eastern European immigrants who have only just arrived.

Currently foreign citizens must live in the UK for three years before applying to become police constables - meaning that all new officers are broadly familiar with British culture and customs.

Now chief constables are complaining that the three-year rule is 'frustrating' their efforts to recruit more Eastern Europeans to help them police rapidly-growing immigrant communities.

But rank-and-file police warned that putting newly-arrived immigrants on the beat with 'no understanding' of life in Britain could seriously affect public confidence.